1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector and a conductive member thereof, and more particularly to a conductive member of an electrical connector that is capable of securely retaining a solder ball and achieving desirable soldering.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a conventional electrical connector, a single-arm conductive member is used, and a solder ball must be firstly soldered on a tail portion of the conductive member and then soldered on a circuit board. As a result, the cost of the soldering process is increased and an insulating body of the electrical connector may be easily deformed under heat.
To solve the above problems, a double-arm conductive member has been proposed in the field. Several double-arm conductive members are installed in corresponding through holes of an insulating body to form an electrical connector. The conductive member has a base fixed in the through hole, two retaining arms extending in parallel downwards from the base are exposed outside the insulating body, and a gap is formed between the two retaining arms to retain a solder ball therein. The retaining arms do not extend outwards beyond extension lines of side surfaces of the base.
Although the above structure adopts two retaining arms to retain the solder ball so as to save the pre-soldering process, the following defects still exist. Nowadays, with the rapid development of science and technology, the electrical connector develops towards light, small and thin structure, i.e., more functions are realized by increasing the number of conductive members without changing the original size of the insulating body. The number of through holes of the insulating body is also increased in accordance with the number of conductive members, which means that the space inside the through holes becomes smaller, so the retaining arms of the conductive member are exposed outside the through hole to retain the solder ball so as to effectively utilize the space. However, since the two retaining arms extend in parallel downwards from the base, and the retaining arms do not extend outwards beyond the extension lines of the side surfaces of the base, the space between the two retaining arms is limited. Moreover, the retaining arms do not provide any structure for holding the solder ball, so that the solder ball easily slides between the two retaining arms and is easily released from retention of the two retaining arms when the electrical connector is under an external force.
Therefore, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the art to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.